First things first, don’t think just because you’re a small business no one will be interested in hacking your website. They are – even if it’s just a bit of practice. Your business website is one of your most important business assets.
Aside from that, WordPress is the most popular website platform, it accounts for around 28% of all websites over ALL THE INTERNET. That’s a lot. They’ve come a long way in 15 years.
Tip number 1: keep all your plugins up to date: keeping apps and plugins up to date helps keep them secure. Keeping the latest updates helps the developers keep track of vulnerabilities too. And don’t forget to keep WordPress up to date!! This one is very important.
Tip number 2: Only ever download a plugin from the WordPress directory. This is through the plugin link on your dashboard. You don’t want to download a plugin from an untrustworthy source and break your website that way. Viruses and malware aren’t just for computers, and you won’t be popular with your customers if you infect their computers! Save yourself a lot of heartache and only download from a reliable source.
Tip number 3: Download Wordfence. I use this on every website I create, it is a security and malware platform. You can scan your site (which you should also be doing!) and it emails you about updates and security holes within the WordPress CMS platform. The emails can be a little scary at first, but as long as you realise that the emails aren’t about your website, you’ll be OK. Scared me to death when I first started to receive them!
Tip number 4: Back your site up! I use UpdraftPlus. It’s great, you can set how often you back your site up, where it will back up to (DropBox/Google Drive etc). The importance of backing up your website is highlighted in tip 3. If you do make a mess with a plugin or get hacked, having a back up will really save time (and headaches)
Tip number 5: submit your site to Google Search Console. Doing this can give you data to your site that might otherwise get missed.
Tip number 6: Don’t use admin as a login username, and NEVER – EVER use PASSWORD as your password. Not even Pa88w0rd. It’s easy to hack and a stupid mistake that no one in 2018 should be making. I know it’s probably an obvious thing to say, but you’d be surprised about some of the passwords I hear. Honestly, don’t do it. It’s the most ridiculous mistake you could make.
Tip number 7: Make sure you use a reputable hosting company. Many hosts today will offer you some form of security, because hosts generally can offer great back up systems and they will hold your database should you need to ever move/reinstall your website. Another tip (bonus) would be to make sure you can talk to someone over the phone. Online chat is great, but these days you never know if you’re talking to a human or not. Talking to a real human who can really help makes all the difference. There is a breakdown of the top 10 WordPress hosting sites here.
I know 7 tips is a bit random, but I’ve written this on a Friday night, it would’ve been better to have 10 or something – or even 8. But these are 7 good ones, these tips will help you keep your website more secure from hacks and also should anything ever happen and you lose everything – this lot will ensure everything isn’t lost and you don’t have to start again.
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